Daily News - Monday 16 June 2014

The windows of the sedan were greasy from the saliva of two dogs that had been couped up for days inside the vehicle with the unkempt young couple who sat uncomfortably in its front seats.

On the dashboard was a complicated array of pills - prescription medicine - the young woman was taking. Did she look pregnant? The back seat was a jumble of their worldly possessions: doonas, pillows, excess clothes, dog bowl, half-empty biscuit packets and sports bags.

The number of young people employed has contracted by 2.3 per cent over the year to May, yet even this recent slump is merely an extension of a longer term trend decline that continues to pass unnoticed by commentators and policy-makers. Youth unemployment peaked in mid-2008 and has shrunk by in excess of 7 per cent since this time, with almost 140,000 young Australians leaving the labour market.

... The Fair Work Commission is pricing young Australians out of jobs and limiting their capacity to not only support themselves financially but to move from entry level roles to higher paid positions once they have gained valuable work experience.

An alarming number of Australians feel their workplaces are mentally unhealthy environments, causing staff to take more sick days due to depression, anxiety and stress, a new survey has found.

Workers say mental wellbeing is even more neglected than physical safety on the job, with 48 per cent of 1126 respondents saying their employers fail to help them through job-related or personal mental health issues.

Illawarra disability service providers have formed an important alliance to share information, resources and even staff.

The Illawarra Disability Alliance was officially launched by Minister for Illawarra, Ageing and Disability Services John Ajaka in Corrimal on Friday.

It consists of 13 service providers including the Cram Foundation, Disability Services Australia, Flagstaff group, Greenacres Disability Services, House with No Steps, Interchange Illawarra and The Disability Trust.

Working age Australians have become far less reliant on welfare payments since the turn of the century – undermining Abbott government claims of a crisis of welfare dependency in Australia.

The finding comes from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, an authoritative Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research report that has tracked more than 12,000 people since 2001.

New research by Oxfam Australia shows that the wealthiest one per cent of Australians together have more money than 60 per cent of the nation’s population, showing that the ‘lucky country’ is not immune to the creeping inequality that is snaking around the world and slowing the fight against poverty.

An Oxfam poll, also released today, shows 79 per cent of Australians surveyed think the gap between the richest and poorest Australians has widened over the past decade, with the majority of those saying this is making Australia a worse place to live.

Australia has a long and proud tradition of equality, but in recent decades the benefits of strong economic growth have flowed disproportionately to the rich. The growing gulf between those in the top range and those in the lower ranges of wealth and income distribution has profound effects on population health and wellbeing, on educational outcomes and there is increasing evidence that increasing inequality impedes economic productivity and growth.

The Treasurer made a speech this week to address claims his budget was “unfair and exacerbates inequality’’. But he had already given credence to that argument by breaking a promise and increasing the top income tax rate to “share’’ the burden.

Now he is trapped in a fairness and equality argument the Coalition can’t win. “Joe Hockey is sounding a trifle guilty when he says that this is a fair budget,’’ said Shorten yesterday. “He is protesting too much.’’

While Abbott strode forward overseas, Hockey was on the back foot. Political debates can’t be won by defending.

The reality of our welfare system in Australia is that we’ve got dozens of payments, supplements and allowances.

If you draw a diagram of the welfare system it looks like a bird’s nest and it’s difficult to understand from that and it must be difficult for lots of people who are participants in the welfare system, who use aspects of the welfare system to actually understand their way through it. And it’s been added to by decision upon decision, often made in an ad hoc manner over years and indeed decades.

“Don’t expect to see any of that money again.” I wonder how many times people in this room have heard that?

As Good Shepherd’s May edition of Microfinance Matters reported, this was precisely the reaction when the Good Shepherd Sisters first put aside $20,000 in loan capital to be lent to low income earners in inner Melbourne back in 1981.

The Department of Social Services is on the hunt for fresh funding in the next budget in order to undergo a much-needed update to the agency’s grants management system.

DSS – formerly Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs - received $2.1 million in the last federal budget to progress its plan for the project through the Department of Finance’s two-pass review process for major IT initiatives.

Divisions are emerging in public among the American bishops over how to interpret Pope Francis – a split which is likely to be apparent as the US bishops gather in New Orleans this week for their annual spring meeting.

“Our world economic system can’t take it anymore,” says the Bishop of Rome in an interview with La Vanguardia. “I’m no illumined one. I didn’t bring any personal projects under my arm.” “We are throwing away an entire generation to maintain a system that isn’t good,” he opines with respect to unemployed youth.

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Catholic Social Services Australia represents a national network of 52 Catholic social service organisations that provide direct support to hundreds of thousands of people in need each year on behalf of the Catholic Church. Our agencies provide a diverse range of support from assisting women and children escaping family violence, housing and homelessness support, to mental health and disability services. They also work in partnership with Indigenous people, and offer support and services to people seeking asylum and those who are refugees.